The Standstill
by hungryhippo121
Summary: He had known all along it was stupid to place a part of your heart in the keeping of someone else. Maybe that's why he had fought her so ruthlessly; resisting her every step of the way; shying from everything she was offering and everything he was yearning to accept. He had run out of chances to accept her now. Run out of time to realise what he wanted. Run out of time to save her.


**Author's Note; Just a cheeky one-shot to address the irrational Sirius feels I've been having recently! I'm not intending to elaborate on it but I think any of my usual readers can attest to how whimsical I am, so I may do after I wrap up the other stories on my shelf. I'm hoping I only need a one time fix to get angsty/young/hot Sirius OUT OF MY HEAD! But anyways, enjoy.**

"Where is she? Prongs- don't fucking look at me like that, just tell me where she is!"

His breath came in ragged gasps; he'd been running since he'd heard the news. In many ways, he still was. He'd give anything to be able to keep running for the rest of his life. After all, wasn't that what he was best at? What he'd been doing since the day he'd been born into that miserable excuse for a family? Running, always running. He didn't know towards what. Or who. He'd thought maybe he could stop when he'd found family in James. In Remus and Peter. Even in Lily. But then this war had started and everything had gotten fucked up and he knew now that there was only one person who could calm his racing pulse. Who could reassure him that everything was okay. That he was home.

And it wasn't James.

"James, for fuck's sake! Where is she?"

His friend's hazel eyes burned in anguish as he stared in silence at his best friend; chest heaving, eyes wild, face coated in determined disbelief. Sirius's voice was too forced; too rough; too raw. Like every word he spoke drilled knives into him, like every second of silence he endured tortured him that little bit longer. But James couldn't put him out of his misery. He couldn't say the words that would destroy his best friend. He willed them to come but they just wouldn't; dying on his tongue every time Sirius looked desperately around him, waiting for the small blonde to slip out of some door, some nook or cranny he had overlooked.

Lily slipped her hand into her husband's, tears still staining her red cheeks and flowing freely. She couldn't stop crying, no matter how much she wanted to be strong for Sirius. All she could do was stare at him and hope beyond hope that James would find the strength to say the words that none of them could. Hearing it out loud was real; far too real. Seeing Sirius's face would be too real. Even now, as he gazed beseechingly at the sombre group gathered in the Potter's kitchen, she could see the cracks of doubt on his face.

He knew now what they all had known since the moment Mad-Eye had called them to this meeting. Since the moment they had seen his grim, unusually grief stricken countenance and felt the heavy, pointed and unmistakeable absence of the small blonde in the room. They hadn't really needed Mad-Eye's sombre announcement that she was gone. Or at least Lily hadn't. She'd known before he even started speaking, although she couldn't entirely place from when. Oh Marlene, she whispered internally, silent tears falling with renewed vigour as she stared at the broken man Marls had left behind; making it all too real once again.

All of her lilting laughs, small smirks, exaggerated hair flips and jerky dance moves. _Her Marlene_. Her best and oldest friend. The girl who first showed her how to snog a boy, the girl who held her hair after her first messy encounter with firewhisky, the girl who had listened for hours as she moaned about the arrogance of James Potter and the girl she shared a sly smile with when she walked down the aisle towards him.

Just gone. Like all of that meant nothing, amounted to nothing, when faced with the reality of how she had died. The cruelty and brutality of her murder blighting out all of the fun and vigour with with she had lived.

Murder. The word tasted like bile in her mouth.

"Remus..." Sirius pleaded.

His voice changed tone, losing the cocky, arrogant edge it had always adopted. The proud drawl had melted away, the undertone much more vulnerable and quieter than any of his friends had ever heard. Scarily vulnerable.

Remus swallowed, his own eyes red and bloodshot. He could think of nothing that would comfort Sirius now. Nothing would. He just hoped he wouldn't go off the deep end again. He knew things hadn't ended well between Padfoot and Marlene, and he hoped beyond hope that Sirius didn't start blaming himself. He had a tendency to do that where Marlene was concerned. If she was hurt by some other boy, had a fight with Lily, was scared by the attacks... Sirius always found a way to fix it for her. And now that she was... had been taken from them, when she'd really needed him; he'd been the last to know. He knew Marlene would never think that way; never blame Sirius. But he knew his friend, and he knew Sirius was already blaming himself.

"Remus- _where_ is she?" His words became harsher as anger mounted; anger at those bastards that would dare to hurt her, dare to threaten her; anger at his friends that would tell him nothing. Anger at Marlene herself, for putting him through this. When he finally found of her...

And fear; all consuming, blinding, paralysing fear; that he would _never _find her. Never see her again. That his last words to her would be what they had been; never to make it up to her. This wasn't how they worked. They were dysfunctional sure; but they had a system. They would be happy, until he did something to fuck it up; then she'd scream at him and he'd yell back at her and she would storm off. He would regret it; regret it more than anything; the kind of regret that eats at you until you think you're going insane. And that's when he'd snap out of it and make some grand gesture and she'd forgive him.

It went unspoken, but _she'd known_. She'd known that they weren't done, weren't _actually_ over. She'd known he still loved her; had always loved her and probably always would. She had to have known.

She was breaking the rules. This wasn't how things were supposed to go for them.

This was something that happened to other people; he'd been through enough, survived what he was supposed to survive, endured what he was supposed to endure. How was he supposed to deal with this?

And Marlene...

This was not how things were supposed to go _for her_. He was the mess; _he_ was the liability; _he_ was the risk. If he pictured her life, he saw bright, excited smiles beaming out at him from behind photographs; maybe a few happy, blonde kids tugging at her ankles or bouncing in her arms. Her blowing out their birthday candles, her crying at their weddings...

Her own wedding.

His beautiful Marlene in white, smiling, beautiful, angelic, gliding down the aisle towards him, James at his side.

Merlin, what the fuck had he done.

In his mind's eye her creamy skin turned sickly pale, her sparkling, green-flecked eyes a dull lifeless black. And her smile, the smile that would haunt his nightmares for years to come, morphed into a silent scream, forever frozen on her face in a flash of green.

Had she thought of him? Was she afraid? Did she know what was coming for her? Did she have all the regrets he was feeling?

Did she wait for him? Did she think he would come, if she could just hold on long enough to give him the chance? The thought twisted his gut painfully. The thought of her calling for him, willing him to come. He could almost hear her voice; faint whispers through tears; her begging him to come for her.

I would have Marlene. In a heartbeat.

How could he have let this happen? How could he have let those _murdering psychopaths_ rob her of the future that should have been hers? The life that _could have been theirs_. No, it wasn't true. Couldn't be. He still had time. Time to fix things; tell her he loved her; keep her safe. Someone just needed to say it. _Someone needed _to throw him this lifeline. Couldn't they see he was drowning? Couldn't they see the torture and agony this was causing? It needed to end. He couldn't breathe. Not until he knew she was okay. Not without her.

"James." He lifted his gaze to his old friend, ignoring the sobs of the redhead beside him, the sympathetic stares of the Prewetts, the sorrowful eyes of Remus, the quiet understanding of Mad-eye and tear-stained faces of Meadows and McDonald. Their eyes told him nothing. There was only one person in that room who truly understood what Marlene had been to him; only one person he would believe if he said she was gone.

Only one.

James closed his eyes, shielding himself from the frightening intensity of Sirius's gaze. His steely eyes seemed to be alight, searing into James's mind as if through sheer force of will, he would find the truth there. Taking a shaky breath, his resolve stiffened as Lily squeezed his hand gently.

He glanced into her green eyes, looking for the courage he no longer felt. She had lost her best-friend. _Her Sirius_. And here she was, still standing, still supporting him.

If she could be brave; he could.

He finally met Sirius's gaze, and nearly broke when another thought occurred to him.

He had lost _his_ Lily. Sirius _had lost_ her. And he, James, would have to tell him.

He couldn't even imagine. And he hated himself for what he had to do.

"She's gone, Sirius. Her... whole family. Mad-Eye's team found the mark over the house and... I'm so sorry mate. But she's dead." His voice shook, faint and weak. But firm. Sirius needed to know. He had to be strong for his friend, this one last time.

Sirius heard the words wash over him like a wave, not quite sinking in, but knocking the air from his lungs none the less. The room was still full of people, watching him, gauging his reaction, murmuring comforting words; but he felt oddly detached from it, like he wasn't really there, just trapped in his own nightmare, waiting to wake. An empty mirage of himself, created from shadows and smoke; not real, not inhabiting the same world as them, just observing. Or maybe they were the shadow images and he was the real one.

He couldn't tell.

He didn't care.

He never wanted to go back to their world or have them join him in his. He didn't want to be part of a world where mothers could beat and torture and abandon their sons. A world where people like Lily were ostracised and belittled and murdered. Where people like Marlene... where people like her were murdered.

He didn't want that.

_He wanted Marlene_.

And slowly, it sunk in; drop by drop; agonisingly slowly and impossible to stop.

He couldn't have her. She was dead. She was murdered. He could search the end of the world for her and he'd never find her; never make it up to her. It was as if she'd never existed; every trace of everything that made Marlene, _Marlene_- just vanished from the surface of the earth. Her strawberry shampoo, her weird obsession with Gobstones, how she'd always secretly craved to be on the receiving end of a howler and how she was terrified of the goblins in Gringotts.

She had disappeared; left him behind and he couldn't follow her. All of those heated arguments, passionate embraces after hard-fought forgiveness; all of those moments of roaring, delirious laughter and quiet, contented companionship- all amounting to nothing in the end. Nothing but emptiness and a hollow, sick feeling he couldn't describe. All those years of chasing her, running after her, and finally, they had reached a standstill. The end of the road, where the ground disappeared in front of his feet and he had no where to turn, no way to reach her.

She was gone and he couldn't follow her.

She was gone forever.


End file.
